The selective plugging strategy of microbial enhanced oil recovery involves the use of microbes that grow and produce exopolymeric substances, which block the high permeability zones of an oil reservoir, thus allowing the water to flow through the low permeability zones leading to increase in oil recovery. Bacillus licheniformis TT33, a hot water spring isolate, is facultatively anaerobic, halotolerant, and thermotolerant. It produces EPS as well as biosurfactant and has a biofilm-forming ability. The viscosity of its cell-free supernatant is 120 mPas at 28oC. Its purified EPS contained 26% carbohydrate and 3% protein. Its biosurfactant reduced the surface tension of water from 72 to 34mN/m. This strain gave 27.7+/-3.5% oil recovery in a sand pack column. Environmental scanning electron microscopy analysis showed bacterial growth and biofilm formation in the sand pack. Biochemical tests and amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis confirmed that the oil recovery obtained in the sand pack column was due to Bacillus licheniformis TT33.

Bacillus licheniformis K125, isolated from an oil reservoir, produces an effective bioemulsifier. The crude bioemulsifier showed 66%(E(24)) emulsification activity and reduced the surface tension of water from 72 to 34 mN/m. It contains substantial amount of polysaccharide, protein and lipid. This bioemulsifier is pseudoplastic non-Newtonian in nature. It forms oil in water emulsion which remains stable at wide range of pH, temperature and salinity. It gave 43+/-3.3% additional oil recovery upon application to a sand pack column designed to simulate an oil reservoir. This is 13.7% higher than that obtained from crude lipopeptide biosurfactants produced by the standard strain, Bacillus mojavensis JF2 and 8.5% higher than hot water spring isolate, B. licheniformis TT42. The increased oil recovery obtained by using the crude bioemulsifier can be attributed to its combined surface and emulsification activity. Its mechanism of oil recovery must be similar to the mechanism exhibited by surfactant-polymer flooding process of chemical enhanced oil recovery.